


The Aftermath

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Misfits
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, M/M, Misfits AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-28 21:23:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7657255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the storm, things are different, for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Aftermath

When Harry wakes up, something feels different. 

His forehead is tingling and he is still lying on the cement outside the community centre. He sits up with a groan, and notices the chunks of ice and the bodies that are scattered all around him. 

Hermione is closest, he leans over to check if she is breathing. It is with relief that he discovers she is.

"Shit." he mutters. 

"I'm glad we agree." comes a sharp voice.

Harry snaps his head around towards the voice. Draco Malfoy is sitting on one of the park benches, legs crossed at the ankles, headphones in one ear. 

"What happened?" Harry asks.

"We got struck by lightning." Draco replies casually.

"What!?" Harry exclaims, rubbing at the back of his neck-- it is sore, and he's sure that he must have landed very oddly for it to be aching so badly.

"It's not a particularly difficult concept. The storm produced lightning, the lightning smited us. Frankly, I'm surprised none of us are dead."

"Same." Harry agrees, ignoring the sarcasm. 

"But since you've woken up, I can leave you to it. Do look after the others." Draco stands casually and stretches with the sort of unconscious grace that Harry has always secretly longed for.

"What?" Harry says. "You can't leave!"

"I can and I will. Have fun, scarhead."

"What?" Harry asks again.

Draco smirks. "You'd best be cleaning up that forehead, I'm almost certain you weren't winning any contests before, but now, well..." he trails off and shrugs.

"Whatever, Malfoy." Harry snaps. He turns back to Hermione and nudges her shoulder carefully. She comes to with a groan.

"Wake up." Harry says, before going around and attempting to rouse the others. Both Ron and Pansy wake quickly, Neville takes several shakes and a hit to the face with some melting ice before he wakes with alarm. 

"According to Malfoy, we've all been struck by lightning." Harry explains when they are all listening.

"Where is he now?" Pansy inquires.

"Took off."

"Little shit." Ron says.

"Well, I'm thinking I might do the same. I don't know where Kingsley is, and to be honest, I'm not all that keen on sticking around after that."

"You can't leave!" Hermione exclaims, marching over to him. "We have to go see a medical expert, to make sure there's no internal damage. Getting struck by lightning is very debilitating."

"I'm sure I'll be fine." says Harry, shrugging out of her grip. "See you's all tomorrow."

After Harry leaves, he walks around for several hours-- enough time to be sure that they will all have left the community centre and gone home for the night. Then he doubles back and breaks through an upstairs window. He's been wise enough to leave his back pack and sleeping bag in the locker room. And so he fetches the both of them, before finding a warm, upstairs office to crash the night in. On his way he encounters several vending machines. And so it is that Harry settles in for the night, snug in his bag with a stomach full of stolen chips and soft drink.

 

The next day, he wakes to the sound of keys jiggling in a lock, hurriedly, he jumps out of his bag, rolls it, and runs stealthily down the hall to peer out of the window. Kingsley is downstairs, unlocking the building. Harry thanks his lucky stars that he is such a light sleeper.

Quickly, Harry runs down to the locker room. If he hears Kingsley decide to use it, he's almost certain he'll be able to squeeze inside of one and hide. Luckily, he doesn't have to. He spends the next hour listening to his walkman before Ron and Hermione walk in-- deep in discussion. Pansy follows them soon after. 

"Have any of you guys, noticed anything.. different?" Pansy says.

"No." says Harry.

"Holy fuck!" Pansy exclaims. "Potter, clean that shit up. I don't want to see it."

"What?" he asks, genuinely confused. 

"Harry," says Hermione, sounding disappointed. "I would have thought that after our discussion, you might have at least had the effort to clean up your wounds, that's just basic hygiene, and safety of course. How could you be so irresponsible?"

"What are you guys on about?" 

Ron steps forward. "Have you seen your head, mate?"

"No?"

The others exchange grim looks. Harry opens one of the locker doors and stares, horrified, at his face in the mirror. "Fuck."

There is a large gash across his forehead, enough blood surrounds it that he cannot make out it's shape, but he can tell that it is jagged and thin. He jogs over to the sink and runs the tap, before dipping a paper towel in and rubbing away the dried blood.

As the blood clears away, Harry watches on morbidly as the rust red swirls down the sink and into the drain. Then he look up. There is what appears to be a semi-deep cut, slashing into his head in the shape of a lightning bolt.

"Does it hurt?" Hermione asks.

Harry shrugs. Before, he had hardly noticed it-- now he can feel it sting a little. "Nah."

"Do you think it means something, like, you got struck by lightning and now you have a lightning bolt scar?" Pansy says. 

Hermione scoffs. "Don't be so superstitious. It's a coincidence."

"I'm just saying," Pansy defends herself. "Weird things have been happening. And I'm not an imbecile!" she exclaims.

Ron and Hermione exchange glances. 

"No one said you were." Harry says.

"She just did!" Pansy snaps. "I heard her. And I'm not a crazy bint, Weasley. You'll pay for that one. Bunch of fucking shits."

"I didn't say that!" Ron exclaims, before adding thoughtfully. "...out loud."

Hermione whirls to face him, looking incredulous. "What are you saying?"

"Well, I mean... I've seen street magicians do that shit, you know. Hey, Pansy. I'm thinking of a number between one and ten."

"The word vagina isn't a number, Weasley." Pansy says boredly.

"Oh my god!" says Ron. "That's amazing. Do Hermione."

Hermione rolls her eyes. "It's impossible."

Harry steps forward. "Can you hear what we're all thinking?" he asks. Part of him is very skeptical, but there is not a lot in this world that would surprise him anymore, and he'd rather be prepared.

Pansy hardly looks like she believes herself. "I've been hearing strange things," she says. "Ever since that storm."

"Fair enough," says Harry, scratching the back of his neck. "We'll do a test."

Pansy nods. 

Harry steps forward again, this feels important. "I will think of a colour."

Green, he thinks.

"Green." Pansy replies.

He thinks about purple.

"Purple, you changed it!"

Orange.

"Orange, sort of an ugly colour, Potter. But nevermind, Blue!"

Harry turns to face Hermione, who has her nose scrunched up a little. "She got them all right." he says. 

"It's not possible." Hermione says. "I don't know how she's doing it, but it's not possible."

"Well, Granger. Obviously it is, or I wouldn't be doing it!" Pansy snaps. "Ron, do you believe me."

Hermione glares at him for a bit, before Ron shrugs. "Yeah, guess so."

When the others arrive, none of them want to mention it. It all seems a little more crazy now that there is the possibility they might have to explain it to people. Draco and Neville hardly seem to notice the awkward silence that comes over the locker-room when they enter however.

All of them dress quickly, and head outside. Kingsley assigns them the same job as they were given yesterday, apparently there is no limit to the amount of graffiti in the area, and pauses to give them an inspirational speech, about how they can do better, be better, live better.

For the most part, they all ignore it. Except for Hermione who is nodding with the sort of fervour that might imply she'd like to take notes, and Neville, who is at least listening.

Harry's mind begins to wander, he thinks about the Dursleys, and their house, and specifically the hole in his old room under the floorboard. He'd forgotten until just now, with all the drama of his community service and trying to find a place to sleep. Now however, the memory of his most prized possessions; some old photographs given to him by that weird old lady who knew his parents, several of his best cassettes-- (Nirvana, Pink Floyd), and his skateboard. He'd had to tear a shit-ton of filling out from the hole to fit that in there, and even then it had been a tight fit. He had been worried he might never get it out, but found quickly that the prospect of Dudley getting his hands on it was far more terrifying. 

Harry resolved himself then and there to get his things back. He did not relish the idea of breaking into the Dursleys house-- in fact, seeing a Dursley in real life was the last thing he wanted to do. Unsurprisingly, being homeless was better than living with them. He would just have to make sure he didn't get caught, technically he wasn't allowed within one hundred metres of the property. He didn't care. He knew their schedules, he'd be in and out quicker than you could say 'petty crime'.

With this goal firm in his mind, Harry once again took to scraping. He could hear the others squabbling and complaining about it again, but he tuned them out. He didn't find the work as tedious as the others made it out to be.

"So," comes a voice behind him. "I hear you're dangerous."

Harry turns to look at Malfoy. Raises an eyebrow, and then goes back to work.

"Potter. I looked you up on my computer."

"You have a computer?" Harry asks. Dudley had a computer, before he broke it.

"Yes," replies Draco smugly, sounding rather impressed with himself. "It's top of the range, my father bought it from--"

"I don't care." Harry says, interrupting him. He's known Malfoy less that forty eight hours and Harry already knows that he is sick of Draco's father.

Malfoy is silent for a moment. "Well, you're a freak. I read about what you did to your uncle. I can't imagine beating a family member nearly to death, but then again, I'm not actually insane, so... there's that."

Harry growls. "Look, Malfoy. You don't fucking kick a dog because sometimes they bite back. If you don't expect the bite, then you're a fool."

Malfoy's brow creases. "I don't understand." he looks as though it causes him pain to admit such a thing.

Harry laughs bitterly. "No," he says. "I suppose you wouldn't." Again, he turns back to his work.

"Listen to me, Potter," Draco says, sharply. His words sound like acid in the mouth. "I'm trying to have a conversation with you, you should feel flattered, honestly."

Harry sighs. "Malfoy, go away. I just want to finish this work so I can go home.

"Oh, where do you live?" Malfoy asks curiously.

"None of your business." Harry snaps defensively. He doesn't care to imagine the sort of mocking a rich boy like Malfoy might get it in his head to start up should he find out that Harry is homeless.

"Why won't you tell me?" Malfoy whines.

Harry frowns. Malfoy had been much more cool and suave yesterday, now he is... different. Demanding.

"I don't want to." Harry says. 

Malfoy grabs his shoulder and turns Harry to face him. Malfoy looks into Harry's eyes deeply. "Tell me where you live." he says.

"In the community centre," Harry replies. "I'm homeless." he claps a hand over his mouth. "What did you just do to me!?"

Malfoy lets go of his arm as though burned. "I don't know! I didn't mean to! You weren't listening, and I wanted to know, and I just-- my fingers are tingling. Why are they tingling?" 

"Shit." Harry says succinctly.

"Don't just stand there and curse, Potter. Something really freakish is happening to me. My god, do think perhaps I'm superhuman?" 

"Super pain in the arse," Harry mutters. "Parkinson," he barks. "Get over here, I think Malfoy has what you've got."

Pansy comes over, and the others follow her.

"He told me to tell him something," Harry explains. "And he stared really deeply into my eyes and I told him."

Pansy snorts. "Doesn't sound that weird."

"It was weird." Draco says. "My fingers are tingling."

"Still not that weird" Pansy says.

Harry is suddenly tired. "Just, read our minds."

He thinks as hard as he can about the incident and Pansy gasps. "I didn't know you were homeless."

"That's all you're getting from that?" Draco snarks. "Can we focus on my problems please?"

Neville is frowning. "I'm confused." he says.

"This is all unbelievable." Hermione adds. "Honestly."

"All since that fucking storm," Ron says.

Hermione glares at him. "It's not real, Ronald. For whatever reason, they are all just dicking us around."

"Did you just swear?" Pansy asks delightedly.

Hermione's cheeks go pink.

Harry looks at Malfoy, who is leaning against the wall, evidently trying for some of the sophistication he had been projecting yesterday. 

"That's never happened until now has it?" Harry asks him.

Malfoy stares at him with pale eyes. "No." he says simply.

"All this has happened because of that storm." Ron says. "I'm telling you all now."

It makes sense, even though it seems impossible.

"I agree, Potter." Pansy says.

"Get out of my head, Parkinson."

Malfoy laughs suddenly. "So what? I can make people answer my questions, and Pansy can read minds? Seems a little far-fetched."

"But it's true." Pansy says quietly.

"And it does make you wonder..." says Ron.

"About what?" Harry asks.

Ron looks around at them all before speaking seriously. "Well, there were the six of us caught in that storm. It sort of follows... well. I mean, if they can do that... what can the rest of us do?"

There is silence as they all assess his statement. And in the silence, there is truth; none of them know.


End file.
